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A HOUSE OF MERCY. 25
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Transcript
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.
. At A Few This High Days Institution Ga...
mornings previous to our conversation . A girl was writing home ' and spoke of her brother ' s approaching marriage . She said , " I hope
my brother will be happy ; but I don't want to see his wife—I don't know whybut I have a prejudice against her . " " Such a sentence
, as this could not pass , " observed the Warden . " The poor girl did not know of what spirit she was when writing such words . I have
shown her that this is cruel and unchristian , and that if the world were to act so towards herwho in truth is a great sinner , all door
of hope would indeed be closed , upon her . Having seen this letter enabled me to speak to her -words which I hope may sink into her
heart , and produce a more Christian temper . " The Warden spoke to me also of letters belonging to a very sad
class ; letters from girls who , having quitted the institution , had again fallen into evil ways . These were letters sad enough to make
an angel mourn ; anguished cries for help ; letters filled with bitterest self-contempt and upbraiding ; letters ill-spelt and
illwritten , but couched occasionally in singularly eloquent words , in terms of strange refinement evidently caught in miserable
intercourse with men of education . Often a markedly wayward , violent spirit breathed from the blurred and blotted words , mingling with
a cry after deliverance . It was as though the hand which inscribed them had now been guided by a demon , now by a guardian
angel . The information respecting one letter lives in my mind as the
last act of a gloomy tragedy . The writer said that she had suddenly left _" her friend" the term always used by these poor friendless
, beings as if in bitter mockery of themselves , "wherefore she knew not , except that something within her compelled her to leave him ,
and break her bonds . She wrote that she had " money in advance , and comfortable , nay , handsome apartments , but that she was
impelled to go ; and besought , in the most urgent terms , for help . " She went on to saythat , if the Warden would bub take compassion
, upon her , at a certain time , and at a certain place which she mentioned in Drury Lane , he would meet with her .
" What did you do ? " I asked , " did you save her ?" " I called at the place mentioned , " the benevolent Warden
returned , " and found that the unhappy woman had been staying there in a miserable room ; that she had spoken of expecting to see
a clergyman , but she was gone ! I could learn nothing more concerning her—the great vortex of this awful London appeared to
have swallowed her up . " No girls having left the institution are ever again received within
its walls . The Warden exerts himself when appealed to by the fallen , and procures their admission into similar institutions . "It
is often a most painful duty to refuse re-admission , " he said , " but this is a law impossible to break , and all penitents quitting us are
aware of the existence of this law . "
A House Of Mercy. 25
A HOUSE OF MERCY . 25
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Citation
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English Woman’s Journal (1858-1864), March 1, 1858, page 25, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/ewj/issues/ewj_01031858/page/25/
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